(Apr13)Restoration
of thechurch of
Portosalvo has finally started. It's hard to
tell how the work is going because they have
draped safety screens over all the scaffolding,
which is normal. Also relatively normal is the
fact that they are going to pay for the
restoration by selling ads on the screen. Big ads.
(See this link.) That
is of some concern, since, after all, it's a
church and blah blah blah. I've noticed a giant ad
for Original Marines, a shop that sells men's
clothing and sporting goods. So far, nothing
offensive.

(Apr14) This is just like
Bingo Night at St. Mary’s except it’s for a
good cause! The Polish monks who run the church of
Santa Maria del Pozzo di Somma Vesuviana (photo,
right), near Naples, held a raffle to raise 70,000
euros so they can at least start on the
restoration of the church, a historic gem that
dates back to 1510 (and even that was built on an
earlier Angevin house of worship). One of the
monks was a bit apologetic about trying to sell
8,000 tickets to the faithful, one of whom will
win a car. That's gambling! "Times are tough," he
said.

(Apr16)Brandiis
the best-known restaurant/pizzeria in
Naples. It has sat just off of via Chiaia for 300
years, when it was called Pietro...e basta
così. Its major claim to fame is as the
inventor of the Pizza Margherita, the genial idea
of one pizza chef named Raffaele Esposito, who in
1889 sent a pizza to Queen Margherita at the royal
palace (200 yards away. “Sorry, your majesty. We don’t
deliver.” !? No, I don’t think so.) with
the red, white and green trimmings of the (then)
new Italian flag. The restaurant is decorated with
photos of the fat & famous, throwing back
enormous three-hour multi-course Italian meals.
They may have started
with pizza as an appetizer, but they then wound
their way through pasta, fish or meat, cheese,
dessert and resuscitation heart paddles. The
photos and nostalgic decor will no doubt remain,
but all you will now be able to order up is
pizza—and, ok, maybe a few pizza side orders such
as insalata
caprese. The owner claims that this has
nothing to do with economic difficulties. It’s
what people want, he says. The establishment is
dead in the center of Tourist Naples, and when the
Japanese, Americans, and ten-foot-tall
blue-skinned Na’vi tourists show up this summer,
all they’ll be able to get is pizza. Not just
Margherita, mind you. There’ll be a lot of
choices.

(Apr19)Why is Madame
Butterfly wearing a pair of Nikes? State
support for opera companies in Italy comes from
the umbrella fund, FUS (Fondo unico per lo spettacolo).
The fund currently supports 14 Opera-Symphony
institutions throughout the nation, including San
Carlo in Naples. A law cutting back on the level
of state support for most of these institutions
has just been approved. Potentially, the cutbacks
will effect everything from the number of artistic
personnel and stage hands to the number of
performances put on each season. Part of the plan
is to incentivize private investment. The new law
has made exceptions for la Scala in Milan and the Accademia nazionale
di Santa Cecilia in Rome. Support for
those two will continue unchanged due to their
“particular national interest.” Given the
spectacular history of
San Carlo, the fact that the state does not
consider it a “particular national interest” seems
to be an unforgivable snub to the artistic
director of San Carlo, Roberto De Simone. “We
taught music to the world,” he says. “Now they'll
put on their rock concerts and turn it all into a
super market.”

(May 5)I’ll take one of
those...and one of those...and...
It's early May and the isle of Capri is awash with
wealthy house hunters. There are, in fact, 30
exclusive villas for sale on Capri. There’s a nice
little number down by the Faraglioni: two level
home, three bedrooms, terrace, two baths, studio,
kitchen—all for the low, low price of €4,950,000
(that’s just so you don’t scream “FIVE MILLION
EUROS!?”) At the other end of the list, we have
the famous Villa Castiglione (photo, right); it’s
on a hill at 250 meters above sea-level, built on
the ruins of one of Tiberius 12 imperial
residences, and has never been subdivided into
apartments. You get the whole thing. It’s
spectacular. The current owner wants out. It’s
yours for €35,000,000. Don’t try to bargain with
them. If you can’t meet that price, they’ll find
someone who can. Easily.

(May 25) Larry Ray and I have
finished translating The Subsoil of Naples,
a book commissioned by the city of Naples in the
1960s. It is a pretty thorough compedium of the
geology and urban history of the area, including
chapters on all of those fascinating chambers
beneath the city, tunnel construction, the
aqueduct and why buildings and streets tend to
cave in every once in a while. (See the above
link.)

(May 29) Italy's grand
Tremonti Recovery/Austerity Plan to save the
Italian economy includes such things as cutting
the salaries of politicians (good!), fighting tax
evasion (hah!) and a broad series of budget cuts
to regional governments, such as Campania, of
which Naples is the capital. Cuts seem to hit
culture first. (See the San Carlo item, above). Now, word
comes of cuts to the following: the Anton Dohrn Aquarium
(photo, right), the Benedetto
Croce Library, the Center
for the Study of the Herculaneum Papyri, the
Marine Park on the isle
of Vivara (Procida), among others. Some may
be closed, and some may simply wind up with so
little money that they can't function. Some, such
as the aquarium, though scheduled to be closed,
will wind up incorporated into the university. No
one knows what that means.

(May 31) This news will not
warm the cockles of your spaghetti ai frutti
di mare. Most Neapolitans like a few
marine bivalve molluscs in their spaghetti or
Pantagruelian soups once in a while. The favorite
two of these
little "sea fruits" are the tellina and
the cannolicchio—respectively,
the cockle and the European razor clam. Well,
there is trouble in clam city thanks to new
European Union (EU) fishing regulations that
regulate how close in to shore you may spread your
net upon the waters. The new and greater distance,
though obviously meant to prevent overfishing and
depletion of the creatures, will cause great
difficulty in trying to meet local needs.

(June 10) Yesterday was Italian
Navy Day, and it was celebrated for the
first time in five years in the Bay of Naples. The
centerpiece was the presence of the "tall ship,"
the Amerigo
Vespucci, a training vessel built after
the design of large, late-18th-century ships of
the line. The vessel is a full-rigged three-master
with an overall length of 101 meters (331 ft)
including the bowsprit. The ship was built in
nearby Castellammare and launched in 1931. It is
one of many sailing vessels used to train young
seamen in navies throughout the world. In the
summer months, the compliment of 223 officers and
men is augmented by 140 first-year students from
the Italian Naval Academy in Livorno. The Amerigo Vespucci
was meticulously overhauled in 2006. (Also
see Boats of the Bay.)(Also
see this entry on the
ill-fated sister-ship, the Cristofero Colombo.) Both vessels were modeled on the
old Bourbon flagship, the Monarch
(see this link).

(June 12) The Oscar Niemeyerboondoggle
auditorium in Ravello took ten years to build, had
a glorious opening, has not been used a day since
the opening in February and is now in such
run-down condition that it will not host any of
the events for this summer's Ravello Festival and
will not even be available to musical groups as
rehearsal space. Since the European Union kicked
in 18 million euros for this baby, a lot of folks
are screaming mad. It seems to be the fault of
petty politics: the party that was for it was in
and is out; the party against it was out and is
in. That's the theme; supply your own variations.
So, there it sits. It still looks pretty good in
architecture magazines, though.

(June 19) The Vuvuzela —that
delightful African monotone plastic bugle that is
ruining the World Cup matches for the unrabid— is
now selling on the streets of Naples as Italy
gears up for it's second game in the round-robin
prelims. The Neapolitan version is shorter and,
thus, higher-pitched and, thus, more irritating.
Now you can stand out on the balcony, wave the
flag, and go nuts. It's a good thing that rabid
sports fans have short attention spans. Maybe four
years from now, it'll be something else. I favor
the hula hoop. (related
item here)

(June 19)O ye of
little bandwidth!The iSanGennaro! This new iPhone
app, brought to you by a Neapolitan DJ "lets you
experience first-hand all the excitement of the
miracle of the liquefaction..." This is in
reference to the Miracle of
San Gennaro. A vial of the saint's clotted
blood appears on the screen; then, you shake it by
moving the iPhone just right. If you do it just
right enough, the miracle of liquefaction appears,
accompanied by the written notification "Miracle"
and then... I'm not sure. At least one happy
cyber-supplicant claims to have installed it and
had a whole series of miracles happen to him and
those around him. The creator of the application
assures us that iSanGennaro! is a tribute to
Neapolitan religious tradition and in no way meant
to be a sacrilegious sleazy Jesus-on-a pancake 40
Mb rip-off. (See update on next miscellaneous page,
here.)